‘Hope When It Hurts’ written by Kristen Wetherell and Sarah Walton is a book of biblical reflections on 2 Corinthians 4 and 5 to help understand God’s purposes in the midst of suffering. It points to the hope that God wants to give us; a hope in the middle of the hurt where God Himself works through the pain and has suffered Himself, making a way to give us life abundantly (John 10:10).

Reading this book is like being invited into a honest discussion of the real hurting in our lives and it breaks it down into bite-size chunks to process. Each bite-size chunk is a chapter of only a few pages addressing an aspect of suffering, followed by a few questions to reflect upon and space to journal at the end of each chapter.

If you want to think about the ‘why’ in the pain, you are not alone. I am in good company as someone who started writing a blog in the middle of suffering. As I turned the pages of the book I thought ‘Yes! They really get suffering…’ They ‘get’ suffering because both the authors ‘are’ suffering. Present tense. They are writing it in the storm. The storm of sickness. Both of them have Lyme disease. They have witnessed suffering within their own families. Here is a short video explaining a bit more of their situations:

Yet, through the pain they have hope. They hope in God because God understands pain more than we do. They wrote the book for those who are in the middle of the pain and offer the hope and comfort that they have experienced from God, to comfort and support those who are in the battle.

Even if you are not going through any particular suffering yourself, I would encourage you to read this book as it points to the hope we have in Christ. It sheds light into the suffering world we see around us, whether that is from a family or friend or the broken world we view in the news. There are words of wisdom seeping through each page like a hand reaching out to uphold and strengthen you through the pain. We could all do with some words of comfort and I personally found so many words that encouraged my aching heart.

‘Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God.’ 2 Corinthians 1:3-4

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3 thoughts on “Hope When It Hurts – Book Review”

This sounds just the book for a whole family I know affected by Lyme’s disease. They are in our church and we have seen them suffer and struggle so much as we have prayed for them. With your permission, Ruth, I’d like to forward your blog to them with the book title. Thanks, Sheila x